The Beauty In The Fall
by cold clouds
Summary: It was one of those average Fall mornings. The leaves changed to flame as she fell in love.


**Hi! So this was written for queen-sheep's acronym challenge and her 1,2,3,4 challenge.**

 **For the acronym challenge, my word was BEAUTIFUL and my prompts for the other challenge was:** _ **Fall/ Hephaestus and Leo/ breaking, making, shaking/ create, find, scroll, food.**_

 _ ***warning- major Caleo***_

 _ **Hope you guys enjoy :)**_

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 **B** reaking things are always a whole lot easier than making them, Calypso thought to herself, flustered as she knocked over yet another box of components, watching it fall to the workshop floor in a splintering shamble of chipped wood.

' **E** ver heard of the saying; 'Watch where you're going?' Leo threw up his oil-stained hands, playfully exasperated as he stooped down to clean up the latest mess. Calypso's almond-eyed glare was shot his way.

' **A** s if it's _my_ fault that this place is some sort of Labyrinth! You never clean up after yourself, that's why it's impossible to find anything down here!'

 **U** nfortunately, she was right. Food was strewn across the worktable, rubbish was littered on top of seemingly every square inch of space, and a few of the half-blood's broken projects were piled up in a heap of smoking machinery that he called his 'junkyard'.

 **T** he Latino boy smirked at his caramel-haired girlfriend, 'So I'm not clean, but at least I'm not _clumsy_ like someone else I know. It's an _organised_ mess, okay? As long as I know where everything is, it's all good. There's no need to stress yourself out over it, Cali.'

 **I** f she had complained about it all day, she knew he wouldn't start tidying, so she gave up and sat at the table to watch Leo work, reading from a charred scroll which he had accidently set fire to a couple of times. For a while her gaze flickered outside the window, where the season of Fall was at its best and brightest, the trees bursting with reds, oranges and yellows as if the whole forest was ablaze with fire. Leaves turned to flame as they spiralled through the air, shaking in the fierce autumnal breeze.

 **F** or all his messiness, Calypso had to admit that when he had something to create, Leo was as careful and detailed with his work as Hephaestus himself. Scales gleamed a polished celestial bronze, and it had wings sculpted from sparkling imperial gold. When she asked him how it would be able to fly when it looked so heavy, he just tapped his nose and said: ' _you'll see,'_ before continuing to workon the claws underneath the majestic creature, appearing sharp enough to graze diamond, and the two ruby eyes glinting crimson under the fluorescent lighting.

 **U** gly was a word often associated with the God of the Forges. People assumed that looks were more of an Aphrodite thing, and just wasn't important to the offspring of the famously unattractive God. However, Calypso understood that it _was_. More than anything. She caught the intense focus in Leo's eyes, the strained diligence with which he tried to make everything absolutely perfect. All of the power and beauty he had inside of him, he would bleed into his creations. He made things beautiful. Both machines and people, too. He had made _her_ feel brand-new, after all.

' **L** ike what you see?' the trickster obnoxiously winked, a grease stain on his cheek and soot all over his face. 'Yes, he's beautiful,' she breathed, resting her palm on the flank of the finally fixed mechanical dragon, 'What will you call him?' 'What he's always been called!' Leo snaked his arms around her waist, 'Festus. Happy the Dragon, if you will, because that's how I feel right now. With you. I mean I'm really happy, not that I'm a dragon. It's how you make me feel. I mean-' Calypso leaned in and kissed the tip of his soot-smudged nose, 'I get it, firebug.' As he kissed her, sweaty hands on her hips, with her fingers running through his greasy, oil-smattered curls in the middle of most disgusting workshop in all of America, Calypso couldn't remember feeling more ineffably beautiful ever in her life before.

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 **Heeeey. I had loads of fun writing this, so thank you so much queen-sheep for the awesome challenge ideas!**

 **I've put up the second chapter of** _ **Queens, Kings and Faraway Things**_ **if you guys want to check it out 3**

 **Feel free to leave a review if you'd like to :)**

 **-Cat**


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